Catharine Clark GalleryArt Market San Francisco 2016

Catharine Clark Gallery celebrates Art Market’s sixth season with a curation of water-themed work which play on the multiple meanings of the word reflection, and further comments on the nexus of water in history, present politics, and the future of the planet.

Press Release

Catharine Clark Gallery celebrates Art Market’s sixth season with a curation of water-themed work. Inspired by W.H. Auden’s poem on “The Tempest”, "On the Sea and the Mirror" showcases several artists’ work which reference reflections and water as landscape, self-portraiture, backdrop, protagonist, political statement, context for humor, formal device, art historical riff, and break from more apocalyptic topics. The work selected plays on the multiple meanings of the word reflection, and further comments on the nexus of water in history, present politics, and the future of the planet. Media work by Kevin Cooley highlights the Animas River crisis in Southwestern Colorado, and the haunting effects on the water supply for millions of people across the Western States. Sandow Birk’s "Imaginary Monument 'Proposal for a Monument to the Free Sea'" lauds the historical documents responsible for current maritime law; and Masami Teraoka’s watercolors and prints portray the visual beauty and sexual pleasure which water in various forms provides. Paintings by Scott Greene, Kara Maria and Julie Heffernan, photographs by Ellen Kooi, and ceramics by Wanxin Zhang will surprise visitors with the unexpected and powerful modes in which water frames our existence, is embedded in our cultural norms and expectations, and expands our sense of interconnectedness to the natural world. In addition, Booth 401 features several videos. Rob Carter’s "Sun City" features the real and imagined transformation of the seaside town of Benidorm, Spain through stop-motion animation. Chris Doyle’s videos "Surface Tension" and "Circular Lament" are iterations of work produced for The Lightening: A Project for Wave Hill’s Aquatic Gardens, which was commissioned in 2015 for the 50th anniversary of the Bronx-based public garden and cultural center. The videos draw upon a profound environmental anxiety around water, while at the same time immersing the viewer in their visceral beauty. Looking at the surface of a body of water, viewers see two worlds in a single plane. Water is both a mirror to the sky, and a window into the depths of life below the surface. Doyle’s projections evoke breathtaking views into both spheres.

The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art reopens on May 14, 2016, with a much-anticipated program of exhibitions and events. Nina Katchadourian’s video, "Under Pressure" (2014), acquired last year by the museum, will exhibit in SFMOMA’s inaugural re-opening program. Visitors to the fair will have the opportunity to view Katchadourian’s video Under Pressure in the context of the artist’s "Seat Assignment" project, (2010—ongoing) which includes photographs from the artist’s widely renowned Lavatory Self-Portraits in the Flemish Style. Katchadourian literally uses her reflection in the mirror of an airplane lavatory to comment on how downtime, even in the confines of an airplane, can be transformed into creative production.